Pushing EnvelopesSjef Frenken

I was still
munching away at my last mouthful, as Jack picked a rolled-up newspaper from his
shopping bag, dramatically jabbed an index finger at a headline and announced:
"There's your next constitutional challenge."

I said
"Jack, I don't have my reading glasses on, I can't tell what you're pointing
at."

"Polygamy,"
said Jack. "This article says there's a Muslim religious -- an imam, I guess --
who has performed polygamous marriages right here in Canada, contrary to civil
law, of course, but perfectly in accordance with Muslim law -- Sharia. Also the
topic is hot in the US. The authorities in Texas have decided to do something
about it, and I gather there is at least one polygamous community in Canada that
is raising a few eyebrows."

I said
"So?"

Jack said:
"Do I have to spell it out for you? Somewhere down the line Canadian law has to
come to grips with polygamy. Under current law it's illegal. But you can be
sure that if anyone is convicted, there will be appeals all the way up to the
Supreme Court. And, frankly, there may be a surprise in the works."

I said
"Why? As far as I know marriage is between one man and one woman."

"Where have
you been?" asked Jack. "Marriage is no longer exclusively between one man and
one woman. Same-sex marriage ripped that door off the barn a while back; that
horse is gone. The Supreme Court has spoken, and all the Parliamentarians who
voted against same-sex marriage before, dutifully fell in line when the Court's
decision came out. They could have used the "Notwithstanding Clause", but they
chose not to. They could easily have done so, and gone on to define marriage as
being exclusively between one man and one woman."

I said "I've
often wondered about that 'Notwithstanding Clause'. There would have been no
Constitution without that clause; the provincial premiers made sure of that.
But what exactly did the drafters of the Constitution have in mind when they put
that clause in? To what situations did they think it would apply, when would it
be necessary to use it? It seems to me that this indeed would have been such an
occasion: the majority of Canadians was against same-sex marriage, same as the
legislators. It was a big issue. After all, you can't get more fundamental in
your social structure than the traditional family unit."

"Exactly,"
said Jack. "This is one of the problems when you have a Constitution, one of
balance. On the one hand you have more than a hundred elected law-makers; on
the other you have a dozen non-elected judges. There is no doubt some elected
governments have made bad laws and superior courts have overruled them. But by
the same token, a mere handful of appointed judges is now the arbiter whether a
law is constitutional, and then you need one hell of a lot more political will
to correct the situation. A tricky business."

I said "So
where were you going before I sidetracked you."

Jack said: I
was going to say that once we get out of the one-man-one-woman definition of
marriage, all options are open. Why not have polygamy -- especially if it's to
be defended on religious grounds -- Islam and Mormonism, for instance. And if
you open it up for religion, why not open it up for other reasons?"

I said
"Well, in a way we've had serial polygamy and polyandry for centuries, men and
women trading old spouses legally for new ones, and what with adultery being a
popular though frowned-upon pastime, simultaneous poly-fooling-around has been
around for a long time too, especially since we gave up public stoning as a
deterrent."

Jack
interrupted "A public stoning isn't nearly as entertaining as TV or a
blockbuster movie or a strip show... Mind you, if they put it on TV..." Jack
mused.

"Frankly,
Jack," I over-rode him, "I've never understood polygamy except in terms of
getting a religion to grow as fast as possible. Some of those Old Testament
fathers knew what they were doing. Solomon is supposed to have had upward of
700 wives and concubines!"

"That's not
fair," said Jack.

I said "How
do you mean?"

Jack said
"Think of the 699 men who had to do without a wife or concubine."

I said "I
never heard anyone sympathizing with their plight. Nice of you to do so. But
think of the women too -- they had access, so to speak, to Solomon on average
only once every two years. I guess they deserve some sympathy too!"

Jack said,
with a wink, "I guess they all had to take matters into their own hands!"

"Anyhow," I
said, "I seems to me that polyandry makes more sense than polygamy."

Jack said
"How do you mean?"

I said
"Think about it: one woman can satisfy lots of men: I read somewhere that there
is a record of one woman having had sex in the traditional fashion with more
than 700 men in one day. I bet there are few men alive today who could tackle
even one-hundredth of that number of women. On the other hand, one man can
impregnate 700 women in the traditional manner, even if it takes him 100 days."

"True," Jack
admitted, and I could see that he was doing some calculating, "When I was
younger...," he continued ...

I cut him
off. "I don't need to know. The point I was trying to make is that polyandry
makes a lot more sense than polygamy, especially these days when women are not
dependent on men for their living."

Jack said:
"So, what argument is there not to allow polygamy and polyandry?"

I said "For
one thing, polygamy puts things off balance. If one man can have two wives,
then some man somewhere will have to do without one, and that, as you just
finished pointing out, doesn't seem fair."

Jack said
"Yes, but if we allow polyandry also, chances are things will balance out in the
end. In fact, I can't see any reason why we can't have even plural marriages,
with several men and several women having one marriage."

I said "How
would you handle a divorce settlement?"

Jack said
"If it's a total break-up, the common property is divided evenly among all the
participants; if it's just one person leaving the arrangement, he or she gets
whatever portion is equitable. No problem, except for the accounting -- but
that's a sore point even under our current marriage laws."

I said,
"Jack, since you are on a roll here, where does the social envelope get pushed
after we have poly-marriages.?"

Jack said
"Only one taboo left: incest."

I said "Oh,
come on...!"

Jack said
"In our society we've come to believe that what we call love is the only
ingredient necessary for a marriage. In fact until a few centuries ago in
Western Europe, love was not even a consideration. You married for property,
for convenience, for alliances, for all kinds of reasons, but love was not a
prerequisite. Love was something that grew AFTER you got married. For us love
is a hormone-induced impulse -- a nice feeling, but hardly cerebral. We rightly
say we "fall in love", it's an accident. And we "fall out of love" when the
hormones quit on us. Our idea of hormonal love raises unattainable
expectations; no wonder that divorce is the order of the day. If the hormones
stop coming, the marriage is over. What nonsense!"

I said "I
hope you don't mind my saying so, but aren't you a hormonal-love junkie
yourself?"

"Yes," said
Jack, "that's how I know! Anyhow, if "love" is the reason we give for dual-sex
and same-sex marriage, and eventually poly-marriage, why not allow it for
marriage between members of the same family: father and daughter; mother and
son; brother and sister."

I said
"Jack, incestuous relationships have been forbidden for two reasons. The first
one is that it may, and often does, result in genetically damaged progeny."

"Hey," said
Jack, "let's move along with the times! If the in-utero offspring is determined
to have a defect, trundle it off to the nearest abortoir. Problem solved! So
what stands in the way of incestuous marriages?"

I said, "At
this point in your argument, nothing as far as sister-and-brother,
brother-and-brother and sister-and-sister marriages are concerned. But the
second argument against parent-offspring alliances was that it would undermine
the structure of the nuclear family: mother would be jealous of daughter, for
instance. And discipline would be a problem: how could the mother discipline a
son if she were also sleeping with him?"

Jack said
"NOW? you're expressing a concern about the break-up of the nuclear family?
After the entire herd has broken out of the barn? In fact has taken the barn
with it?!"

I said
"Jack, enough with the sarcasm. What do you really think about non-traditional
marriage. Are you for it or against it?

"Frankly,"
said Jack, "I'm against marriage. Period."

Sjef Frenken is a renaissance man: thinker, writer, translator and composer of much music. A main interest, he has many, is setting to music the poetry, written for children, during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Nimble of mind, Sjef is a youthful retiree and a great-grandfather. Mostly he's a content man, which facilitates his relentless multi-media creativity.